bean
Legume Liaison
It's completely crazy that being for the working class and poor and making that your political identity seems to be viewed as a radical position.
Boutique Pedal Manufacturers Are Feeling the Tariff Pinch
- Thread starter Chuck D. Bones
- Start date
It's completely crazy that being for the working class and poor and making that your political identity seems to be viewed as a radical position.
And if you are poor working class, you are of no position, even if you don't realize it yet.
Until Citizens United is reversed, I feel it will only get worse. And I am growing more doubtful by the day that it will happen in my lifetime.
We can spit vitriol about one man kicking a couple hundred to the former football player but the reality is the corporations and billionaires have most of these ass hats bought and paid for before they step foot into the capitol.
Democracy is a thin cloak that some are still buying.
mckillacuddy
Member
Oh. Whoa.
comradehoser
Well-known member
Except that in the current politics of the US, it's a minority that is attempting and succeeding in imposing a radical right wing consensus and political reality as the status quo. They literally want to move the United States backwards to before the great depression or earlier in some aspects.
Happy 4th, y'all. When in the course of human events and all that
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Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
Angry with the situation, not your post.
comradehoser
Well-known member
Oh, I get it. You can be angry with my post, too. I am.
Stickman393
Well-known member
I'm just kinda angry in general.
I find myself in an interesting position, being the radical leftist pain in the ass who started selling pedals 2 years ago. I don't have the experience with parts and PCB manufacturing being dirt cheap. I have a full time job and don't rely on pedal sales to pay my bills. I work out of a one bedroom apartment, paint my own enclosures, print my own decals, and work almost exclusively on vero. I pay less and make more per item, but sell almost none compared to someone like Earthquaker. I understand their struggle. it sucks to watch. but it only means good things for me, for other small batch home builders. Keeley, like Mr Scott, play the aw shucks decent guy routine, but I don't really believe either of them. I don't want to watch businesses fail over Cheeto Mussolini's syphilitic insanity driven policies, but while I can't save them, I guess I can be happy for me, right?
Chuck D. Bones
Circuit Wizard
Just out of curiosity, if you were paying yourself out of the revenue from pedal sales, what would be your hourly wage? Some of the hand-built stuff I see on Reverb is so inexpensive that there is no way the sellers are making even minimum wage.
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Erik S
Well-known member
I had that thought too. Once all the companies that rely on operating at a profit are driven out, those of us who lose money on everything we sell will have the whole market to ourselves!!
my therapist asks the same question
i have an answer no one likes: my time is worthless. building pedals is an escape for me. all this time, energy, research, it is positive for my mental health. it's not keeping me from other things I need to do, I don't do anything else. I'm paying myself in all the positive mental energy. The money is a bonus. It also helps that I don't sell on Reverb and don't pay their stupid fees.
that is why I can draw a huge line between what I do and what earthquaker does. I don't have employees, offices, HR. I'm not relying on this to survive. I want us both to be prosperous. They do what I can't, I do what they can no longer afford to. But the second they are forced under, bittersweet as it is, that can only be good for my wallet. I can really do without JHS, Keeley, Jackson/Fulltone, so I won't lose sleep over them
Stickman393
Well-known member
See, I'd have a philosophical debate with your therapist, there, if they don't like that answer:
The idea that everything we do must have an economic value is something that has really only infected the American consciousness in the last 50 years or so, along with the rise of neoliberalism.
It kinda goes hand in hand with the mentality that everything must be quantifiable and measurable. It's also why the world sucks so bad.
Do shit for the enjoyment. Hell yeah. My total pay package for work is like...150 dollars an hour. But that's something that I *don't* particularly enjoy doing. Plus having to answer to a boss who's constantly shooting for higher performance and productivity...to the point where it's absolutely *exhausting*. It's kinda what they have to do in order to get me to show up.
Pedal building is like...nah, you don't have to pay me for that. But also, pay me. Except don't, cause I'm not actually a seller. But pay me, hypothetically speaking.
Locrian99
Well-known member
Yes lets get a bunch it minimum wage paying manufacturing jobs back. Sounds brilliant
DaddyDunks
Member
I’m in the odd position of being a small business owner in another industry (brewing) and we’ve been around for 21 years, but this year in particular has been more challenging than any before (including pandemic); the tariffs, the slowing of middle class wages and the increasing inflation have all contributed to a slower year than I had projected. I think all small businesses are feeling a similar rumbling in the market, and it’s very unsettling to say the least. I, like maertz13, build pedals as an escape, but I’d never dare turn another hobby into another business (it does suck the soul out of it a little when you deal with employees, insurance, taxes, etc.).
It’s maddening to see the different facets of small businesses that are directly being affected by this ridiculous “trade war”, a large portion of my grain is imported from Europe, and that particular grain cannot be replicated or even grown domestically (and even if it is, it would not perform the same in the final product). This is analogous to a very many small businesses’ supply chain (pedals included), and to know that these business owners actively participate (either knowingly or ignorantly) in the systemic downfall of small businesses is truly astounding. End rant.
It’s maddening to see the different facets of small businesses that are directly being affected by this ridiculous “trade war”, a large portion of my grain is imported from Europe, and that particular grain cannot be replicated or even grown domestically (and even if it is, it would not perform the same in the final product). This is analogous to a very many small businesses’ supply chain (pedals included), and to know that these business owners actively participate (either knowingly or ignorantly) in the systemic downfall of small businesses is truly astounding. End rant.
Big Monk
Well-known member
owlexifry
Well-known member
+1
same.
it's mostly about the wording. calling my time worthless seems like negative self talk. instead i should consider reframing it as my time is being used for something positive. semantics. she was the one that called me being holed up in my house hunched over a soldering iron my version of meditating.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
I have mixed feelings on this one. I enjoy building pedals, it started as and always has been an escape for me, but I also have a wife and three kids, and time spent building pedals is time that isn't focused on them, so I need to be compensated for that.
I still have a day job that pays the bills and provides all the insurances we need, but based on my tax filing 2024 was the first year I made more money from pedals than I did from my day job. I have consistently been told my pedals are underpriced and I could get away with charging more, but I pay myself what I consider a fair wage for my labor, in addition to charging for the parts I'm using (the price of which is obviously increasing).
This is exactly what we deal with. Different industry but exact same problem. I've tried to substitute some of my international suppliers with domestic suppliers, and despite the higher price they have been inferior quality and somehow also worse customer service.
Stickman393
Well-known member
It is...but it's also deeply instructive in regards to the way we tend to value things.
"Worthless" and "Priceless" are two words in our lexicon that ought to mean about the same thing based on how they're etemologically derived, but absolutely have differing connotations.
"Worthless" ascribes a negative status. Junk. No good. Not worth...well...anything.
And while combating that negative self-talk absolutely is worthwhile...it strikes me that combating said negative self-talk by simply ascribing a dollar value to one's time doesn't really do much. To think about such things as if they're a balance sheet is deeply alienating: it reduces your time, regardless of the level of enjoyment derived from your time, to a simple dollar value. Something to be traded for currency.
Personally...look, I'm no fool. I know that this is the water we all swim in and we kinda have to buy into that mindset in order to maintain gainful employment and, like, survive.
But it's also the sort of dynamic that I will absolutely *rage* against as soon as it tries to make its way into my personal life. Cause the truth of the matter is this stickman is gonna die some day: time spent chasing money at the expense of the things that actually make life enjoyable is the type of thing that I want to minimize as much as possible.
Which, as it turns out, is generally what I tend to do every day, between 6am and 2:30. God I wish I was younger and didn't feel the need to crash on the couch immediately after I get home from work.
Anywho...treat this as it ought to be treated: the ramblings of a two dimensional being who is clearly unwell and a little twitchy.
YourGuitarist
Member
The irony is the massive TI fabs being constructed in the US make it *seem* like tariffs are returning manufacturing but that ball was rolled by *cough cough* Biiiiden with the Chips act which *cough cough* word on the street was not popular with the current admin.